Getting to the heart of marketing success with a tight marketing budget

You want to grow your business and market your products and services but have a tight budget allocated to marketing? Not sure where to spend your dollars because the world of marketing has changed so much? 

The majority of New Zealand business owners do not allocate sufficient financial resources to R&D, product improvement or marketing in order to achieve the business goals they want. Worse still when it comes to marketing they typically spend whatever marketing budget they do have in hope rather than as part of planned and integrated approach. Typically, this approach results in less than optimal returns on their investment, frustration and consolidation of their belief that “marketing doesn't work” and the way these companies are operating they would be absolutely right!
 

Products and services don’t sell themselves! 

In most cases your prospective customers are not as familiar with your products or services as you would like, worse still they may not even know you or can’t find you. Without addressing each of these barriers, they won’t buy from you. It’s that simple. Smart companies recognize their strengths and weaknesses. If ego’s can be tamed and objectively marketing is acknowledge as a non core competency then you need a business strategy, a marketing plan and marketing strategy to generate new leads and grow your existing business. 

Having developed a strategic plan based on your business goals ask yourself the following questions.

-       Does my strategy plan satisfy my ideal customer?

-       Deliver product awareness

-       Convert potential customers

-       Maximise the ease with which potential customers will purchase

What should my marketing budget be?

We all know the saying – you have to spend money to make money! Trouble is when it’s your money it becomes harder. Just ask any lawyer who as a group are notoriously poor marketers. There are many ways of setting an appropriate marketing budget. However, most businesses typically allocate a percentage of projected gross revenues towards their marketing budget. 

Depending on a number of variables including industry sector, levels of competition, stage of product lifecycle this figure could be anywhere from 1-20% of turnover. Establishing a realistic budget and a plan that is going to work require specialist expertise. It’s in this area that New Zealander’s love of D.I.Y. conspires to limit the growth of many New Zealand small and medium sized businesses. 

If you haven’t got the necessary experience or expertise, get it. Marketing should be the “heart” of your business. The arteries are the plan and the blood is the budget and we all know what happens if we don’t have a healthy heart!